FINANCIAL SERVICES PRACTICES



CII has helped clients in the Financial Services arena overcome their toughest business challenges through the application of Performance Excellence methodologies. As the Financial Services industry has evolved, so has CII. Our Financial Services Practice is dedicated to understanding the needs of this market, and how to address these issues. The goal of this practice team is also to more accurately align with our clients’ strategic business objectives in order to produce dramatic and lasting results.

Some of the areas that our Financial Services clients have had the most profound impact within are:

Internal Operations

Optimizing your internal operations such as billing, payments and cash flow management can have a dramatic impact on the ease of your daily operations. Initially these improvements are characterized by reduction in turnaround times and improved accuracy, but employee satisfaction and a positive cultural change are also common. Other operational initiatives such as a business realignment, merger or a branch revitalization can also benefit from structured operational improvement. For one firm, branch office redundancy and rework resulted in client dissatisfaction and $7 million in excess expenses every year. Initial analyses showed that much of the problem could be attributed to a few specific locations and certain types of incidents. Results: An 80 percent reduction in branch redundancy and rework, netting $5 million in savings.

Technology & Service Delivery

With consumers becoming more likely to research and subsequently purchase products and services online, companies have to continually evaluate the security, integrity and usability of their technical applications. Back end systems also require accuracy and reliability. Internal and external applications need to be accessible, easily integrated and secure. Evaluation of these areas must be done in parallel to ensure a successful IT implementation.

While reviewing their online service offerings one organization found that adding real-time transaction viewing to its web site prompted 24 percent of its customers to visit the branch less often. In a subsequent customer survey, 38.5 percent said they would make fewer calls to the company’s call center, and 45 percent said they would increase their use of online features.

Results: The company credited this simple change with $3.9 million in savings from reduced traffic and improved online services.

Call Center Operations & Complaint Resolution

Any customer-facing organization needs to focus on meeting their customers’ needs as quickly and efficiently as possible. Many of our clients have Call Centers to address this need and have worked on staffing their centers appropriately and routing their calls accurately with a minimal number of hand-offs.